Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi
Jet Moto belongs to Sony and 989 Studios.
============================================================================
The first thing Ranma was aware of was pain. His head throbbed
with his heartbeat, sending waves of agony from the back of his brain
to his face. His mouth and throat were dry and parched, and his
insides felt as though they'd been through the spin cycle on an
industrial dryer.
Despite his mind and body's ardent protests, he attempted
to open his eyes. The lids grudgingly obliged, the light in the room
stabbing his eyes and cranking the pain in his skull up a few
notches.
"Aw...shit..." he croaked. He knew that he probably looked as
bad as he felt, so he decided not to attempt looking into the mirror.
If he had, he would have noticed Nabiki's face on the little
vid-phone on the dresser. The predatory look on her face probably
would have frightened him out of bed.
"RISE AND SHINE!" her voice blasted. "TIME FOR PRACTICE!"
Ranma's hands shot to his ears, his face becoming a mask of
agony. The sudden sound startled him out of bed and right on the
floor opposite the side where the vid-phone sat. Rising to his knees,
his bleary eyes focused on Nabiki's grinning face on the vid-phone's
monitor.
"Sorry about that, Saotome, but I couldn't resist," she giggled.
"Ya could've tried," he replied. Ranma rose to his feet, the
muscles in his back aching in retaliation. He heard Nabiki whistle
in the fashion most men used for attractive women. His addled brain
then relayed three rather late facts.
One: Nabiki was still on the vid-phone.
Two: He was in an unclothed state.
Three: She was staring at his ass.
Ranma hastily snatched a sheet off the bed, covering his modesty
with a blush coloring his cheeks.
"Now THAT'S one for the scrapbook..." Nabiki said before cutting
the connection. Grumbling, Ranma set to finding some clean clothes.
============================================================================
The Holotrainer was, without a doubt, the most expensive
piece of equipment team Ryu-Ken possessed. It was a
four-by-four-by-four meter chamber outside the Tendo house, the outer
surface lendning the appearance of an obsidian monolith. Ranma stood
outside for a few moments, still shaking off the effects of the
hangover. Once he felt he was ready, he entered.
The inside was rather unimpressive. The jet black walls were
covered by a bright orange grid. In the center was a mock Moto. The
fake Moto was designed to mimic the handling of either a large or
small model, and to simulate in every possible way the conditions
of a real race.
Ranma straddled the mockup Moto, gripping the handles and
calling for the program to begin. An image of a stadium appeared
almost instantly.
The ersatz sun glared down on the track, as noise from the
holographic crowd filled his ears. Taking his feet off the floor,
the training began.
The Holographic Image Projector was outdated. The HIP could only
display so many objects at one time without flickering and slowing
down. The fake Moto would simulate the feelings of impact if the
rider collided with one of the obstacles on the holographic
track. This became evident when Ranma upped the number of holographic
opponents to forty, just to see what it could do.
At one time, the Holotrainer was top of the line. However,
with the decline of the team and the increases in the price of
technology, opportunities to upgrade the Holotrainer's equipment
dried up rather quickly. As such, use of the machine declined as
well. It was still used, but only when access to the track was
unavailable. Like today, for example.
Ranma's headache was still going strong, though the aspirin
was beginning to take effect. His memories of the previous night were
blurry which he had discovered long ago was often for the
best.
He had learned that Ryoga had signed on with a rather prominent
player in the Moto circuits, though the name escaped him. The two had
talked of old times, parties, races, triumphs and tragedies.
Vaguely, he recalled someone carrying him home.
Couldn't have been Ryoga, Ranma thought. God only knows where
I'd have woken up this mornin'.
Having finished yet another simulated lap, Ranma called for the
computer to end the simulation. Training on a holographic track never
did much for him, much less with inferior equipment. He dismounted
the false Moto, and exited through the large double doors on the west
side of the chamber.
On the other side waited Akane, an angry scowl on her face.
"So, how do you feel?" she asked, as though she knew the answer
was terrible.
"Like I had a railroad spike in my head." Ranma replied.
"Well, that's what you get for going on an all-night bender,
you jerk!" she shouted.
Ranma bit back a sharp reply. He really didn't feel up to
arguing with his "partner." Instead, he just walked past her.
He spun around when Akane grabbed his arm.
"Listen up," she hissed, "Because I'll only say this once. I
don't care if Daddy bought out your contract, and I don't care HOW
good you are. You'd better straighten up and fly right or you'd best
get off this team!"
"What?"
"You heard me," Akane replied. "Going out drinking with one of
your old buddies and leaving me and Kasumi to unload the Motos like
that!" Ranma attempted to leave, which prompted Akane to tighten
her grip. "Don't you walk away from me, Ranma," she warned. Her face
was hard, eyes boring into his like laser sights. "I don't know what
you've been doing before you came here, but get this through your
head. You aren't racing with your father anymore, so don't expect
us to be as lax on you as he was..." Akane regretted the words just
a second after they escaped her lips. Ranma's face became hard, his
eyes burning. He tossed her hand off his arm, and glared daggers
into her.
She realized, looking at his rigid, muscular body, that he could
easily rip her apart. Looking into his eyes, she saw that he was
roughly two seconds away from doing just that.
"You don't know a damn thing about me," Ranma began, his voice
ice cold, "but my father NEVER went easy on me!" Like a bolt of
lightning, his arm shot out. Akane flinched, but the blow landed
on the wall beside her head like a gunshot. "And he was even worse
on Ranko..."
"Who?" Akane asked, confused. Ranma glared at her for a few
seconds more, but some of the intensity had faded. It was as though
the thought of this "Ranko" had taken him somewhere else. Placing
his arm back at his side, he stalked off down the corridor leading
to the house.
Akane breathed an audible sigh of relief as he walked away. She
pulled herself off the wall, still a little shaky in her knees.
What the hell was THAT about? She cast a glance at the spot
where his hand hit the wall, and was surprised to see a rather large
crack there.
============================================================================
The red motorcycle shot out of the gates of the Tendo Moto
Training Complex, and into the remains of Nerima Ward. Hunched atop
the screaming machine, Ranma gunned the throttle and sent the
tachometer over into the red.
The sun was still an hour away from reaching its zenith in the
sky, and the smog was relatively light. The ruined buildings shot
past, one indistinguishable from the other. The wind seemed
determined to tear him off his ride as he guided it through the
trash-strewn streets.
Ranma paid little attention to where he was going, depending
on his reflexes to keep the bike upright. His mind was a year
behind his body, recalling the most painful loss he'd ever
suffered...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I hate these backstreet races."
Ranma looked at his sister as she said it, agreeing fully. Not
only were the races illegal, but many racers lost their lives on the
bootlegged tracks.
Ranko was almost a head shorter than her brother Ranma, with a
mane of fiery red hair done in a pig-tail down her back, which was
odd for a Japanese girl. She stood over her kneeling brother as he
fussed over the Moto's internal workings, smiling all the while.
Ranma knelt by the access port of their only able Moto,
double-checking the systems governing steering and the magnetic
fields. The Moto wasn't a bad one, for being nearly ten years old.
The two never did ask their father and manager, Genma Saotome,
where he got it. They knew they'd never get a straight answer from
him.
The sun was setting, the light catching the methane emissions and
other chemicals in the air, giving the sky a psychadelic
appearance with the green and purple clouds. The ruined buildings
were all that was left of what was once a place called Shinjuku.
"So, how's it going down there?" Ranko asked, giggling. Ranma
shot her a half-hearted glare. He hated doing mechanical work, so the
two switched duties of pilot and mechanic since they only had one
working Moto. They chalked that up to their father's incompetence.
At one time, they had two, and some rather good equipment. But, as
usual, Genma Saotome pissed it all away. Now, to keep what little
they had, Ranma and Ranko had to race on the back streets of Japan,
ducking the law and less savory characters.
"GET TO THE LINE," shouted a man in tattered clothes, his hair
done in a multi-colored mohawk. Ranma reluctantly shut the panel.
"C'mon, Ranma," Ranko said, "You can't luck out all the time."
"It's not that," he replied, "I just have a bad feeling about
this race, that's all."
Ranko laughed as she straddled the small Moto. "You're just
superstitious, that's all." She donned her helmet and thumbed the
ignition. The Kawasaki 1000 series power plant cycled up to full in
seconds, the magnetic field lifting the Moto up to its full height
off the ground, about a half meter. Flashing a thumbs-up, she eased
the machine to what passed for the starting line.
Only ten so-called "racers" were competing. They were your
standard cyber-trash; freakish hair, pierced in places they really
shouldn't be, one even had a metal tongue with which he made a lewd
gesture to Ranko.
The race was a rather straight-forward affair. They would charge
through what was left of Shinjuku after the quake of 2002. After
clearing the city, the racers would finish up on the ruined stretch
of freeway that connected Shinjuku to the rest of Tokyo. The starting
gun fired, and the racers took off like bats out of hell.
"You're doin' fine, sis," Ranma said over the comm-link.
Ranko was already in second, not far behind the leader.
"Well, what do ya expect," Ranko replied. "You're dealin' with
the best!"
Ranma's face smiled in the small window on her HUD. With almost
casual ease, she whipped the Moto around the wrecks of cars and
assorted other obstacles. In seconds, she was alongside the lead
racer.
She had to admit, this guy had some skill. He was keeping right
with her, matching her move for move. Ahead, the remains of what was
probably a delivery truck lay overturned in the street. Ranko cut to
the left, and was surprised when her rival cut with her.
What the...., she thought just before he hit her. Screaming,
she charged toward one of the dilapidated buildings.
Fortunately, her Moto blasted through the boarded up door
without throwing her. Cutting the throttle, she brought the front
of the machine around in a sharp curve. She gunned the power plant,
charging through one of the windows, clipping some of the brick.
"You OK?" Ranma shouted. His face and voice radiated worry.
"I'm OK," Ranko replied, "But he won't be for long!" Hitting
a boost, she hurtled through the street, catching up to the guy who
just tried to off her.
"Careful, Ranko," Ranma warned, "You're comin' up on the old
freeway real fast."
"I know," she replied. The freeway had been severely damaged
in the great earthquake that rattled Japan's teeth in the second
year of the twenty-first century. Many sections were missing, and
those that still stood weren't overly reliable.
In seconds, she was on the freeway, dodging the holes. The
freeway was about thirty meters up above more ruined pavement,
concrete, and other assorted types of wreckage. If anyone went over
the side, or down one of the many jagged holes, their chances of
survival were practically nil.
"Ranko, what are you doin'?" Ranma asked as she began to bob and
weave erratically.
"I ain't doin' nothin'!" she shouted, her voice thick with fear.
"What're you talkin' about?" Ranma asked, getting a little
scared himself.
In the passenger seat of their equipment van/sometime
living quarters, Ranma sat with a laptop open on the dash before
him. The screen showed the condition of the various parts of the
Moto, while a window showed in real-time the view from a small camera
embedded in the nose of the machine. The image from the camera weaved
and jumped randomly, almost as if Ranko was losing control.
"Ranma," she said, the fear in her voice shifting rapidly to terror.
"I...I can't control it!"
"Your systems show everything's normal on my end!" Ranma
shouted, scared and confused. Suddenly, a window on the small screen
flashed red, despite the fact that the window displaying her gagues
showed everyhting to be normal. Expanding it, Ranma saw the condition
of Ranko's power plant. A cold lump of fear settled in his stomach
as he saw the display.
"Ranko, your power plant's about to overheat!" he shouted.
"Kill it! Kill it now!"
"I'm tryin'!" she screamed. Ranko had never sounded so
terrified.
Everything seemed to be happening at one time to Ranma. The
image from the Moto-cam was spinning wildly, with Ranko's terrified
screams shrieking forth from the laptop. Ranma's gaze fell on the
power plant window again, with the words "CRITICAL DAMAGE" flashing
over and over repeatedly. Another window popped up, this one showing
the status of the boost tanks. The remaining one was flashing red...
...And then the screen went black.
"Ranko?" No response save static. "Ranko?!" The van seemed suddenly
cavernous in the depths of silence. Cold numbness crept through Ranma's
limbs as the now-blank monitor filled his vision. "RANKO!"
The laptop fell from Ranma's numb fingers as the event set in.
Ranko... was...
He couldn't even bring himself to finish the thought. The
roaring in his ears grew louder as the world went black.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
One year later, the pain was still fresh. The void stubbornly
refused to fill, no matter what. Over the ten years since the death
of his mother, Ranko had been his closest companion. She was all he
had left, his father nothing but a lazy, drunken slave-driver.
The over-turned truck came up suddenly. Ranma didn't notice
it, being so lost in thought. When he finally snapped back to
reality, the rusted wreck was dangerously close.
As fast as he was moving, there was no way he could stop the
bike, or even swerve to avoid the inevitable collision. Instinct
took over as Ranma catapulted himself backward off the bike, landing
roughly on the pavement. The bike charged into the overturned
truck, smashing the front end and bringing the machine to a sudden
halt.
Ranma bounced on the pavement two, three, four times, coming
into a roll along the cracked asphalt. His head impacted a fire
hydrant hard enough to crack the nomex helmet. The resulting jolt
sent the world spinning for a few seconds before going dark.
============================================================================
Tatewaki Kuno walked about the spacious, and extremely well
equipped, garage of team Blue Thunder's headquarters. Along the north
wall were several racks filled with all the tools a mechanic could
possibly want. The west and south walls were lined with parts, brand
new and top of the line. The east wall was bare save for a large
roll-up door. Behind the door rested the team's stock of Motos.
Needless to say, the team was excessively wealthy.
One Moto had an access port open, a diminutive mechanic in a
scarf tending to it. The mechanic was short, his head coming up to
just the seat. Sasuke Sakuragare rolled his eyes, trying to lose
himself in the mundane maintenance he was performing on Kuno's Moto.
The master was composing more of his bad poetry to that Akane Tendo
girl. Sasuke had met her once, and she seemed nice enough, but it was
a wonder she didn't pound him more often.
"Here come ol' flat top he come,
groovin' up slowly he got,
Ju-Ju eyeball he got,
Holy roller he got,
Hair down to his knee,
Got to be a joker got to do what he please," Kuno said in his
most theatrical stage voice. Sasuke just rolled his eyes.
"He wear no shoeshine he got,
Toejam football he got,
Monkey finger he shoot,
Coca-cola he say,
I know you, you know me,
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free," Kuno stopped
his poetry reading when he heard Sasuke softly sing,
"Come together, right now. Over me."
Kuno stopped, glaring at his mechanic.
"Sasuke!" he shouted. "Dost thou dare to mock my noble verses?"
Sasuke jumped at his sudden shout.
"N-n-no Master Kuno," he stammered, "I was trying
to...uh...complement you on your work!"
Kuno scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Imitation IS the
sincerest form of flattery, I suppose." he said. "Very well, continue
with your ministrations upon mine noble steed." With that, he walked
out of the garage. Once he was gone, Sasuke whispered,
"And this is a GOOD day..."
============================================================================
Kasumi opened the door, taking in the two men behind it.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Hibiki," she said, giving a small bow.
"Hello, Kasumi," Ryoga replied. "This is my...chauffeur...
Mikado Sanzenin." He swept a hand toward the tall, handsome man
behind him. Mikado was dressed in what looked to be an Armani
three-piece, looking for all the world like a guy in a shojo manga.
Ryoga wore faded blue jeans and a brown bomber jacket over a white
muscle shirt.
"Oh, please come in," Kasumi said, ever the gracious hostess.
The two entered, removing their shoes and donning the pairs of guest
slippers Kasumi always had available.
"It's a pleasure, Kasumi-sama," Mikado said in his smoothest
voice. He strode up to her, giving a deep bow. "Your home's beauty
is surpassed only by your own."
"Why thank you," Kasumi replied with a smile. "Would you like
some tea?"
"No, thank you, Kasumi," Ryoga replied. "Is Ranma in?"
"No, he isn't," she answered. "He left a few hours ago. He
seemed so upset."
"Oh," Ryoga asked, concerned. "What about?"
"He just got pissed off because I told him to get his act
together," came Akane's voice from the next room. She wore rather
tight-fitting blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Her short bob of hair
shone from the recent washing she gave it. Ryoga's eyes passed over
her a couple of times.
"No, people have told him worse than that, and he just brushed
them off," Ryoga said. "It's gotta be something else."
"Well," Akane replied, "He kinda spaced out after he mentioned
someone named Ranko..." Akane trailed off at the sight of Ryoga's
suddenly pale face. "What?"
"Oh, damn," he whispered. "I gotta find him!" Ryoga turned and
charged off, in completely the wrong directuion.
"Mr. Hibiki!" Kasumi exclaimed, "where are you going?"
"To find that damned idiot," Ryoga replied.
"But the front door's that way," she said, pointing in the
direction opposite of the one in which he was moving. Ryoga stopped
cold and turned, a furious blush coloring his face. Too embarrassed
to say anything, he just walked back in the direction Kasumi was
still pointing.
"Who's Ranko," Akane asked.
"C'mon, I'll tell you on the way," Ryoga replied.